St. Vincent Quotes

I think that a song, when it works, never mind a piece of long form music, even a song is something that speaks to itself but has a language all of its own, ideally.

I write music to both the situations and the lyrics in plays.

Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.

I always loved singing and writing poetry. I always loved music, and I've loved writing my whole life. When I put them together, it was probably in my early 20s where I put words to music for the first time.

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.

I hear music as narrative.

For me, everything definitely comes from music.

I always start with the music and then try to figure out what I want to write about lyrically.

I love making music. I love being involved in arranging music. It's very natural to know what I want to hear next and come up with ideas that are variations of what might be good.

I try to tell a story musically in a song.

I'd always loved poetry and I'd always loved writing music and composing music, but I hadn't thought of putting the two together until around that time.

There is a real formula to writing music, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge. It's very formulaic. The subject matter that you can address in pop music is somewhat restricted. It just doesn't allow that same emotive quality that you can put into poetry.

As a composer, I know that all sorts of sounds I hear are making their way into my brain and soul and later sneak into my music.

I find that albums generally tell a story. Because it's music, it doesn't have to be in chronological order.

Songwriting has become such a big part of what I do that emotions and the melodies that accompany them blur into one.

I fell into lyric writing because of music. I backed into it.

Sondheim is my god; I love the man. I learned a great deal about writing from his work, his lyrics, and his structure.

I've always thought of music as something which gives the words their flight and their wings and the music often comes first, although sometimes I'll have a concept, a title idea, a lyric idea that I want to write and the lyric will come first.

I've been writing music since I was a teenager. I play keyboards. I'm not much of a player, but I can write. That will come along. I'd like to do a musical.

I can tell you, dearest friend, that if it became known how much friendship, love and a world of human and spiritual references I have smuggled into these three movements, the adherents of programme music - should there be any left - would go mad with joy.

Everything in life influences my music. I've always used songwriting as a means to share what I think is profound.

But then you have to write a song, so at that point, I picked up the reins and started to write lyrics.

'My Life' is not an autobiography. It's just music.

I started as a songwriter and wanted to be like Leonard Cohen. I've always seen my stories as enlarged songs.

One of the great things that I loved about doing solo - which I ended up doing because I was too shy to ever try out for bands back in the day - I could sit there with a list of songs and 'paint away' for the show.